- Provincial Consultative Meeting for HIV Round 9 Proposal
To review and take final feedback from the diff erent NGOs and stakeholders for HIV Round 9 Proposal, a Provincial Consultative Meeting was organized by National AIDS Control Program in collaboration with UNAIDS/Pakistan recently at a hotel in Karachi.
Dr. Hasan Abbas Zaheer, National Program Manager, National AIDS Control Program (NACP) briefed the participants about the objective of the meeting. He said that the purpose behind this meeting was to take final opinion from Non-governmental Organisations (NGOs) and stakeholders for incorporation and finally submitting country proposal to CCM and the Global Fund.
Oussama Tawil, UNAIDSCountry Coordinator,UNAIDS-Pakistan on the occasion said that “Pakistan undoubtly have achieved a lot in AIDS response, the commitment in terms of pre-vention for most at risk populations in particular for injecting drug users. He further said that there is need to look on government commitment in terms of long-term sustainability of these resources.
Dr. Muhammad Tariq, National Consultant for the Global Fund Round 9 proposal facilitated the day long consultation with partners. In his presentation he emphasized the need of community based approaches to HIV prevention, care and treatment. He said public private partnership would yield good outcome from the GF R9 project if accepted by the Global Fund.
Global Fund R9 HIV application is gender sensitive, applies innovative startegies and proposes interventions to meet the needs of the people living with HIV and AIDS, injecting drug users and associated populations.
Through this proposal, Punjab and Sindh provinces housing 81% of Pakistan’s population will from benefiting services to 28,000 IDUs (23%of total need), their 2,800 spouses and associated populations. The package referred as Continuum of Prevention and Care (CoPC) and Community and Home Based Care will meet the needs of 24 cities. Timely HIV detection and referral will be accomplished through 24 community based centers packaged with VCT services.
In Pakistan, HIV epidemic is largely IDU driven with estimated 6000 PLHIV in the country. The IDU coverage for desired services reaches only 17,000 of total 90,000 IDUs in the country. Global Fund is expected to cover 23% of IDU coverage gap; increase access to care and support; and enhance program management.
Recalling the point of the meeting with Mr. Micheal, Head of Global Fund in Bangkok, Dr. Tariq Zafar said that the outcomes of the meeting was that the global fund money is for the interventions that have proven to be evidence based to prevent HIV.
Dr. Muhammad Nasir Jilbani, Provincial Program Manager, Provincial AIDS Control Programme thanked all the participants and said that consultative initiatives like this set a good example to yield collective wisdom from both public and private sector partners.